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I see that this time last year, I was much more upbeat than I am now. Maybe it was like finding a shiny new penny… so exciting, until you realize that it has no buying power. Or perhaps it was like embarking on that long-awaited vacation, before the unpleasant reality that “it may be fun while it lasts (or perhaps it won’t be), but in any event it’s not really going to change anything once you get back to the usual humdrum or pain or whatever it is that defines your life.” But it proved to be something like that....

Loyal reader Michael from Mass. sends along this piece of snarky brilliance from “Who is IOZ?” I can’t really top it; the brilliant synthesis of the micro- and macro- of what my country has become, makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time. To wit: While good progressive types bray that the traitorous Obama econ team is feverishly working to reinflate the bubble, as if Larry Summers et alia were unaware of their own project, from my cheap seats it seems the perfectly reasonable thing to do, if indeed your ultimate goal is the maintenance of a...

This Ashura, things is heating up in Iran again, with reports of violent clashes between street protestors and forces loyal to the “government” led by Mahmoud Ahmadinedjad and supreme leader Ayatollah Khamani; among the reported dead is the nephew of opposition presidential candidate (and opposition leader) Mir Hossain Mousavi. Assuming arguendo that our Presidential elections actually matter (and if the 2008 election hasn’t already disabused us of that ridiculous notion, I don’t know what will), one must still at least give the Iranians props for refusing to sit idly by when a presidential election is so clearly stolen right in...

I don’t agree with Congressman Dennis Kucinich on everything, but after a while, I find that I agree with him on more and more things, such as his sentiment that generals who publicly advocated certain military policies viz Afghanistan should be fired [as an aside, note the tenor of the comments, and one can, I suppose, get a flavor for who reads “The Hill,” or at least, who read that particular post.] Kucinich went much farther than I did, of course, in calling for a complete American pullout from Afghanistan (which, unlike a pullout from Iraq, which is essential), I...

On this, the final Festivus Eve of this decade… one is just never quite sure what to call the first decade of the new century/millenium… from 2000 to 2009… obviously, the decade (“the aughties”? the “2000’s?” the zero’s?) has a personal significance to each of us… Still, on a macro-scale, I find it difficult to argue with Juan Cole’s assessment that it was basically “The Bush Decade,” and as such, it sucked. Bush himself was more of a stand-in for the aspirations of the already rich and powerful to suck up whatever means of production and wealth they didn’t already...

So you didn’t think you’d see me back here, did you now? Well, here I am, in an obvious demonstration that with “health care” reform safely through the Senate, global warming safely on track to be flooding my home town of New York City well before the time I’m Daddy’s age, and other stuff, Daddy is simply out of ideas… it is clear that once again, only a cool picture of some teeny-bopper superstar remains the only hope for traffic on this blog. Hence, even though it’s a school night… it’s time for… Vox…Parvi… Populiiiiiiiiii!!!!!!!! Yes… we’re baaaaaacccckkkk!!!! And up...

The “climate deal.” “Too little too late”… much ado about not much… Well… those of us who had little hope for anything constructuve out of the Copenhagen summit… weren’t disappointed. We got a rather vague “agreement” with no numbers, no oversight… and I’m not quite sure what. Perhaps “details” will follow. Not particularly good news for humanity, of course, especially those of us who live close to sea level.

Krugman suggests, simply, “pass the bill.” This, of course, is the flawed “health care reform” bill. I will just say that the Senate bill, if anything gets passed, can be reconciled with the inconsistent House bill, and then a bill, by no means good but better than the crap that is left in the Senate bill, can be rammed through via the 51-votes-needed reconciliation process, if the President and the majority leadership have the cojones to do things the way Bush and the Republicans did for years. And, as Krugman notes, the bill can be improved in years to come…...

It seems that any meeting of human beings to engage in anything constructive will quickly be highjacked by the jocks, cheerleaders, kewl-kidz and the assorted others whose daddies bought them shiny new Beemers… while the rest of us have to cower in the corner, waiting for the approval of the “important people.” We just saw that happen with “health care reform.” And similarly, it seems, the Copenhagen global climate change summit seems to be going… nowhere. For those, like me, who believe in pursuing lost causes (out of boredom if nothing else) our friends at Avaaz.Org have a massive world-wide...